Snp 4.7 · Sn 814–823
To Tissa Metteyya
Tissametteyyasutta
"When someone gives themselves to sex,"
*(Venerable Tissa Metteyya said,)*
"tell us the trouble there, sir.
Hearing your teaching,
we'll train in solitude."
"When someone gives themselves to sex,"
*(the Buddha said to Metteyya,)*
"the teaching slips away,
they go the wrong way.
That's the ignoble thing in them.
Someone who lived alone before
and turns to sex
is like a chariot off course —
the world calls them low and ordinary.
Whatever name they had before
falls away from them.
Seeing this too, they should train
to give up sex.
Caught up in their thoughts,
they brood like a wretch.
Hearing others talk about them,
they're left ashamed.
When others reproach them,
they reach for their weapons.
This is their great greed —
they sink into lies.
They were once known as wise,
committed to walking alone.
But yoked to sex,
they're troubled like a fool.
Knowing this danger here,
before and after,
a sage holds firm to walking alone,
not turning to sex.
They should train in solitude only —
this is highest for the noble.
They shouldn't think themselves best for that —
they come close to *nibbāna*.
The empty sage walking on,
with nothing for sensual pleasures —
people tied to sensual pleasures
envy them, the flood-crossed."